Mike Colter Had Doubts Over Playing ‘Luke Cage’

Whilst ‘Luke Cage’ has been the biggest Marvel show on Netflix this year, its lead star – Mike Colter, originally wasn’t so sure on playing the character. And says he would’ve left if he’d been pushed a certain way.

“I was so against it,I revisit the feeling I had, that first initial look at the character, trying to figure out the research and the character, who this is guy this, and I’m like, ‘I don’t want any part of this.’ I couldn’t think of anything that I didn’t want to do more. I didn’t want to do anything physical, a role where it relied on power and all the stuff like that. And also, I didn’t know how the character would be written, I didn’t know what this character was going to be like. It just seemed limiting. I just thought, ‘What could I do with this?’ I hadn’t seen any material yet. The idea of the character made me cringe.”

In his defence, looking back on some of the classic Luke Cage stories, they are a little cringey in places. But the show did extremely well in terms of bringing him forward and dealing with the 21st century.

“Everybody has an idea of how the character is going to be, and I’m like, this is how I’m going to do it and this is it, take it or leave it. I’m not saying that’s what I said, but I felt like if they were to try and push me in a certain way, that I would’ve walked away from it. There was only one way that I thought this character should be portrayed that I wasn’t going to compromise on.”

He definitely had a clear vision for how he should play ‘Luke Cage’, and it’s hard not to like his performance.